Woodland Hills resident Elise Kane is the artist behind “Octopus,” one of the two winning designs that we printed at our silkscreening workshop last month. We followed up with her with a few questions about her experience.

Where did you first learn the art of printmaking, and intaglio specifically?

I learned intaglio and screenprinting while still a student at UC Davis. My intaglio instructor was Stella Ebner and my screenprinting instructor was Malaquias Montoya, who is known for his art activism in and on behalf of the Chicano community.

What was the octopus print originally created for?

We had been given an assignment in Stella Ebner’s class to create a series that demonstrated the development of a drawing on the metal intaglio plate. In other words, everyone created prints for each of six or seven stages of their etchings. When laid side by side in chronological order, your prints told the story of how that drawing came to fruition.

How did it feel first seeing 100+ votes for your design on the website and then seeing people print it on shirts?

To be honest, in my mind, I think those votes were a fluke. However, in the end, I hope people enjoyed the design.

Have you been wearing your octopus shirt every day?

I didn’t make a shirt for myself because I wanted to use ink colors that weren’t available at the demo. I printed shirts for my parents at the demo, though. My dad has one in blue on a white background to evoke the Dodgers, which is his favorite baseball team. My mom has one in green.

Now that you have the octopus silkscreen as a prize, are you going to print more?

Yes! I’ll be buying inks to print the shirts I didn’t get a chance to make for myself, then one for my brother. Maybe I’ll get around to making some greeting cards too. Thank you to coLAb for the unexpected prize! I’m grateful to have been able to share some work alongside some very talented people. It was a neat show.